George Galloway 62, has represented constituencies in London, Bradford and Glasgow during a political career spanning more than 40 years.
Photograph: Ken McKay/ITV/Rex/Shutterstock

George Galloway has confirmed he will contest the Manchester Gorton byelection as an independent candidate in an attempt to benefit from a divided local Labour party and re-enter parliament.

Galloway, 62, who has represented constituencies in London, Bradford and Glasgow during a political career spanning more than 40 years, said the “all-Asian shortlist” selected by Labour was “the latest in a long line of insults delivered by mainstream parties to local communities”.

The constituency’s population is 29% of Asian background, most of Pakistani origin. All five of the candidates on the Labour shortlist have south Asian heritage – three from Kashmir, one from Pakistan and one from Bangladesh – with one local councillor complaining that rival supporters are trying to exploit ethnic divisions.

Gorton Labour members will choose their byelection candidate at hustings on Wednesday evening. The date of the poll has not yet been set but is expected to coincide with the first mayoral elections in Greater Manchester on 4 May.

Labour said Galloway’s decision to stand as an independent was “entirely self-serving and offers nothing to the local community”.

Lisa Nandy, the MP coordinating Labour’s campaign, said constituents in the seat left vacant after the death of Sir Gerald Kaufman last month, “deserve better than a man who has described the sexual assault of women as ‘bad sexual etiquette’” — the phrase Galloway used to describe rape claims against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

But if Gorton seems like an attractive opportunity for Galloway to seek publicity that is partly thanks to Labour’s problems there. The constituency Labour party (CLP) is well known in Manchester for its infighting, which intensified as Kaufman’s health worsened and members jostled for position to take over. The constituency is considered ultra-safe, with a majority of 24,079, and is largely poor: Gorton served as the setting for Shameless, Paul Abbott’s tragi-comedy about a working class family trying to get by on a Manchester housing estate.

Last year the CLP was suspended from 12 July until 18 October while Labour’s compliance unit investigated allegations of vote-rigging, bullying and intimidation directed at local male party members. The local party can still not elect its own officers without scrutiny from the regional party and external observers.

Some members called police to allege they had been threatened. No charges were ever brought but officers “gave security advice to individuals”, a Greater Manchester police spokesman told the Guardian.

Numerous complaints were made by local members shortly after Kaufman made his final appearances in parliament last May before falling ill.

Four of the candidates on the Labour shortlist are local councillors: Amina Lone, who contested Morecambe and Lunesdale for Labour in the 2015 general election; Luthfur Rahman, chair of the CLP; social worker Yasmine Dar; and solicitor Nasrin Ali. The fifth is the north-west MEP Afzal Khan.

One local councillor claimed that supporters of various candidates were already trying to exploit ethnic divisions in order to influence the selection meeting on Wednesday night.

Two candidates known to be close to Jeremy Corbyn and the Momentum group – activist Sam Wheeler and local councillor Julie Reid – failed to make the shortlist drawn up by a selection panel of Labour’s national executive committee, causing complaints from the left wing of the party.

Lucy Powell, who is the only female Labour MP to ever serve in the city of Manchester, which has five MPs, said: “I think this is a good opportunity for us to better reflect the city as a whole both in terms of BME representation and the representation of woman.”

Just one of the 27 current Greater Manchester MPs is non-white: Yasmin Qureshi in Bolton South East.

Sir Richard Leese, the long-serving leader of Manchester city council, backed Powell, saying: “Though it is not as bad as the other parties, the Labour party in parliament lags behind Manchester council in terms of diversity. This should be an opportunity for Labour to catch-up.” Just over half of Manchester’s councillors are now women.

All of Labour’s shortlist could use their local connections against Galloway. But in a statement released on Tuesday to the website Westmonster, co-founded by the Ukip donor Arron Banks, Dundee-born Galloway acknowledged that he did not have ties to Gorton.

“It’s true I’m not local, but then neither was Sir Matt Busby. Neither was Sir Alex Ferguson nor Pep Guardiola nor José Mourinho. Like them I want to work for you, for Gorton, for Manchester,” he wrote.

“I am, like Sir Matt, a Scot of Irish background. There are plenty of us around Manchester. My 40-year relationship with Pakistan and Bangladesh, my 40 years with the Arabs, mean I can speak the language. I can talk the talk but I also walk the walk.”

And he issued a promise that Labour might see as a warning: “If I were to win here it would be the mother of all byelection victories for the hardworking people of Gorton, who would never be forgotten again.”